RE: Device Description definition

[ Meta-comment: please, please join in! The reason our group has decided to work in public is to enable more people to join in. ]
 
I chose "collection" in order to avoid prescribing a specific structure. It is certainly possible to impose a structure on attribute-value pairs, and this is something that would be considered as part of an ontology definition. This would be the manner in which the semantics of the attributes would be defined. A particular description would be an instance of values associated with such attributes.
 
Collection does not imply "flat list", or "hierarchy". It is sensible to assume that the information in the collection is associated with some vocabulary, and that vocabulary may be flat, or hierarchical, or some other structure. I can see merit in mentioning this in the definition of "device description". Perhaps this:
 
=== Device description - a collection of attribute-value pairs, adhering to a known vocabulary, that apply to each member of a set of devices. ===
 
How a particular description should be encoded is the subject of our Vocabulary effort, some of which you can see in its formative stages on the DD wiki. We will be using RDF/OWL in this case to construct an ontology of the core vocabulary, and we would be very happy for people to "jump in".
 
---Rotan.
 
 

________________________________

From: Christian Timmerer (ITEC) [mailto:christian.timmerer@itec.uni-klu.ac.at]
Sent: Wed 28/02/2007 08:36
To: Rotan Hanrahan; public-ddwg@w3.org
Cc: christian.timmerer@itec.uni-klu.ac.at
Subject: RE: Device Description definition




Dear Rotan,
  sorry for jumping in as someone who's not that deeply involved.

>
> === Device description - a collection of attribute-value pairs that
> apply to each member of a set of devices. ===
[Christian Timmerer (ITEC)] I'm wondering whether a "collection" is defined
in a way differentiating between
 - a "flat list" (of attribute-value pairs) where the enclosing element does
not cover any semantics concerning the contents of the device description
(besides that it is a device description) and
 - a "possible hierarchy" (of attribute-value pairs) where enclosing
elements might have semantics.

I'm not sure enclosing element is the right terminology but I guess it
should be clear what is meant.

Thanks.
Best regards,
 -Christian

>
> Now, we still have the issue of the definition of Device. As we all
> know, the issue of the physical/software duality of the client were
> raised during the workshop. We have no clear idea at this point in time
> how we should uniquely identify the client. Many physical units can
> support the same browser software, and many browsers can work on
> multiple hardware platforms. When a server receives a request, should
> we consider this a request from the physical device, the software
> device, or some hybrid? And is this hybrid identified in the request?
> Can we disambiguate? Can we avoid the combinatorial explosion that will
> result from the problem of identifying hybrids uniquely?
>
> And finally, note that in the DI Glossary definition we find the word
> "apparatus", which some might assume means a physical entity, but of
> course an apparatus could equally be purely software or a combination.
> I believe this is why that particular word was used.
>
> ---Rotan.
>
>
>
> From: member-ddwg On Behalf Of Smith, Kevin, VF-Group
> Sent: 27 February 2007 17:41
> To: member-ddwg
> Subject: Device Description definition
>
> Hi all,
>
> As mentioned, here's my first attempt at a definition of 'Device
> description' for the DI glossary. Once it is agreed I can submit it to
> Rhys and we can refer to it from our documents.
>
> Device description - a parameter that describes a single property
> and/or single capability of a generic instance of a specific device
> [1].
>
> or
>
> Device description - an enumeration of the parameters that define the
> properties and capabilities of a generic instance of a specific device
> .
>
> ...the difference being that for the former, we imply a single
> descriptive item; for the latter, the collective description of a
> device's capabilities.
>
> Notes:
> - as the architecture evolves it may be that the definition changes to
> mention syntax or datatype (e.g. 'parameter' may change to 'attribute-
> value pair' or 'RDF-triple', etc.)
> - the definition does not constrain the description to static
> properties only, should it?
>
> Cheers,
> Kevin
>
>
> [1] Device is defined in the glossary as "An apparatus through which a
> user can perceive and interact with the Web" (http://www.w3.org/TR/di-
> gloss/#def-device)
>
> Kevin Smith
> Technology Strategist
> Vodafone Research & Development
>
> [...]

Received on Wednesday, 28 February 2007 09:16:34 UTC